Bulldogs DL Taylor making adjustments to find success at new level

Friday

Sep 27, 2013 at 12:42 PM

Chris Starrs

According to his coaches and teammates, the future holds a lot of big ups for defensive lineman John Taylor, but only if he can remember to stay down.

The 6-foot-4, 336-pound Taylor - who last year was redshirted and spent much of his time on the scout team - has won raves from the Bulldogs camp for his strength and athletic ability, but the consensus is he needs to continue to refine his technique.

"John is playing inside, at nose guard, and the biggest thing with John, quite frankly, is keeping his pads down," coach Mark Richt said. "He has tendency to want to get up and see what's going on sometimes and he plays too high. If you play high at all in that position, you're going to get moved out of there, no matter how big and strong you are.

"If he will keep his pad level down and learn to read his blocks from down there rather than try to look around and see what's going on, and play his gap and do his job, he'll be a very good football player. But as long as he wants to sight-see, he'll continue to get moved around."

Defensive line coach Chris Wilson echoed Richt's sentiments, adding that being a steady force on the defensive front requires both mental and physical concentration.

"It's a combination," Wilson said. "The mental part comes down to discipline, which means eye discipline. The great players I've ever been around all have great eyes. They know what to look at and they look at the right things. That's what we're trying to do - training John to be disciplined with his eyes. Once he does that, he'll quit being a sight-seer."

Taylor, a former standout from Jenkins County High School in Millen who has seen a limited amount of playing time this season, agrees that he's got to focus on the mental aspects of playing nose guard.

"It's more of a mental thing," said Taylor, who has recorded four tackles, including one for loss, in three games. "I just have to get it through my head that I've got to stay low and knock my guy back. I can improve on staying low and you can always improve on technique. I just have to be more physical and more physical each day. The more physical I can be, the more I can help the defense win games."

Senior nose Garrison Smith sees a lot of himself in Taylor and said he went through many of the challenges Taylor is now facing. In Smith's view, Taylor has to forget most of what he did in high school, as the attributes he had there aren't terribly effective in college football.

"When you're in high school, your coaches just tell you to go and make plays," Smith said. "When you're talented, you're pretty much better than the average high school player. So you really don't have to stay low - you can stay up, look for the ball, throw the guy in front of you out of your way and make the tackle. I used to do that back in the day and [Taylor] does the same thing.

"But you can't get away with that against grown men that know how to play. At this level, everybody's talented and everybody's got the same ability you've got. So you have to learn your technique so you can beat them. Brute strength alone won't work anymore."

"In high school, I could pretty much just toss people around and go make the play," Taylor added. "Here everybody is fast, big and physical, so I'm just working on keeping my pads down and making plays."

Outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins - who said teammates call Taylor "John Coffee" after the powerful but enigmatic character in the 1999 film "The Green Mile" - said linemen who don't stay low can cause problems for the entire defense.

"He's so tall and so big and so strong that he can stand straight up and hold two linemen at bay, but it doesn't help the defense out much when he does it," Jenkins said. "If he can keep his pad level down, he can be an unstoppable force because he squats probably the most on the team."

There's little question that an improved technique will earn Taylor more playing time and several of his teammates think it could lead to even greater glory.

"When Coffee finally gets it, he's going to be one of the most dominant players in the country," Smith said.

"He's so strong that if he stayed low he could dominate anybody he comes up against," Jenkins added.

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